Having a clear, precise vision that you can articulate both internally and externally can serve as a powerful tool for inspiring and motivating others as Sinek explains using the examples of Martin Luther King Jr, the Wright Brothers, and Apple.

Oftentimes, people and organizations spend too much time on ‘what’ and little time understanding ‘why’. As such, vision is little more than a generic statement on a web site: it lacks meaning and is disconnected from everyday life.

Investing time to determine the right ‘why’ and then explicitly articulating it (i.e., talking big) can have very practical benefits for your company in terms of credibility, trust, and value.

Similarly, individuals can also benefit by better understanding their sources of motivation.

Last week, I was having lunch with a former colleague. He wanted to get my feedback on a new online service he was developing. When we started discussing target markets and users (which he had not considered deeply), he immediately mentioned ‘developers and IT.’

This is not the first time I have heard developers and IT used synonymously and interchangeably.

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Recently, I was talking to a colleague who was in the market for a new toaster. He lamented the vast number of options and choices available (e.g., defrost, extra wide for bagels, digital display, 4-slice, reheat, etc.) when all he wanted was one that would simply brown bread evenly on both sides.

In tech product management and marketing, we oftentimes become so enamored with the features of the toaster that we lose sight of what the customer really cares about: the toast.

Do your customers buy toasters or toast?

Make sure you understand the difference when planning and launching your next product.

Recently, there has been an amusing back and forth debate around what constitutes ‘real’ SaaS (Software as a Service). One side believes that if a solution is not multi-tenant, then it is not truly SaaS and is simply warmed-over on-premise software that is hosted. While the other side believes multi-tenancy does not matter provided you have a ‘modern application architecture’ (whatever that means).

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Recently, there was an article on ZDNet speculating that Salesforce.com may be moving away from its ‘social enterprise‘ marketing meme. In hindsight (being 20/20 and all), this should not be surprising: